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A comment on Can Nuclear Power Offer a Way Out of the Climate Crisis?. Parent comment

Re:Can Nuclear Power Offer a Way Out of the Climate Crisis? by xupybd on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @10:17PM (#21998248)
But are those one or two catastrophies worse than the alternative. We know coal kills thousands each year and harms the planet. Would the net impact of Nuclear be better than running the current course.

Ideally we'd use renewables but there are limits to the current tech that need to be solved before we can go 100%.

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Re:Can Nuclear Power Offer a Way Out of the Climate Crisis? by Areading314 on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @10:36PM (#21998340)
You can't heat your house in winter with wind + solar. For a carbon-free world, you need nuclear, period.
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Re:Can Nuclear Power Offer a Way Out of the Climate Crisis? by xupybd on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @10:49PM (#21998408)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626191...

In this paper the authors model renewables in Artic isolated settlements. It's only a model but looks promising.

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Re:Can Nuclear Power Offer a Way Out of the Climate Crisis? by crdoconnor on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @10:57PM (#21998443)
Why not? Wind is a ~50% cheaper source of energy per kWh than nuclear.

Edit : apparently the answer to this question is "downvote" :)

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Re:Can Nuclear Power Offer a Way Out of the Climate Crisis? by Recurecur on Thursday January 09, 2020 @09:48AM (#22001595)
> Why not? Wind is a ~50% cheaper source of energy per kWh than nuclear.

That's an illusory number. Wind requires backup power, or lots of storage. Wind turbines have a ~20 year lifespan, compared with ~60 years for coal/nuclear plants. Once the safety and economies of mass-produced Gen IV SMRs are accounted for, nuclear is MUCH cheaper than wind.

What would be really bad would be the first time thousands of people die when the wind/solar powered grid goes down during a cold snap.

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Re:Can Nuclear Power Offer a Way Out of the Climate Crisis? by pmoriarty on Wednesday January 08, 2020 @11:55PM (#21998674)
"You can't heat your house in winter with wind + solar"

I know someone who actually did heat their home through some pretty brutal winters using just solar heat.. and a pretty simple setup he jury-rigged himself, at that.

So it can be done.

There are also energy storage technologies like ordinary batteries to more exotic technology like molten salt storage for energy generated by solar panels.

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